Baseball

Tennessee Tech earns 2009-2010 Sportsmanship Award for baseball

Jun 09, 2010

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech
University baseball team is the recipient of the 2009-10 Team
Sportsmanship Award as announced Wednesday by the Ohio Valley
Conference. This marks the first time since the inception of the
award in August of 2005 that the baseball program at Tech has
received the honor.

Voted on by the student-athletes and coaches of the respective
sports, the team awards are bestowed upon the Conference squads
deemed to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and
ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA. Included in the
areas for evaluation are the conduct of student-athletes, coaches,
staff and administrators and fans.

“Without sportsmanship there are truly no meaningful
victories,” said Beth DeBauche, OVC Commissioner. “The
recipients of the OVC Team Sportsmanship awards should accept this
award with great pride for their fellow competitors have made it
clear their teams exemplify the best in intercollegiate athletics.
In receiving this prestigious honor other competitors are saying
these student-athletes compete with class, respect their opponents
and value fair play. That is quite a compliment as those are all
traits that will lead to true victories throughout the course of
life.”

While this is a first-time award for the Golden Eagles baseball
program, it is the fourth sportsmanship award given to a TTU
program in the 2009-2010 season alone. The women’s soccer,
golf and outdoor track teams also received the award this year.

"I congratulate Coach Bragga and his student-athletes for
earning the OVC Sportsmanship Award while also winning the OVC
Regular Season Championship,” said Director of Athletics Mark
Wilson. “The members of all four of our honored teams
represent Tennessee Tech so well, and we are proud of the
accomplishments that they have earned while exhibiting exemplary
sportsmanship."

After starting the OVC season 0-5, Tennessee Tech reeled off 11
straight conference victories on its way to its seventh OVC regular
season championship and first since the 1997 season. The Golden
Eagles, who won 14 of its final 15 conference games during the
year, also won 30 games overall for the third-straight season, the
first time that had happened in school history.

“This is fantastic, I definitely want to thank the coaches
of the Ohio Valley Conference for voting for us because we sure
appreciate it, but I think that it’s just a tribute to our
young men,” said TTU head coach Matt Bragga. “We have a
great team of young men that try to do things the right way. There
are a lot of our teams in our league that could have won this
award, so it’s an honor to have received it.”